


huang renjun and na jaemin's omegan history project

by jeffjung (pastel)



Series: how lee jeno accidentally became south korea's leading omega rights activist [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - High School, Friends to Lovers, Light Angst, M/M, Multi, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Pining, Slow Burn, i love writing jeno renjun and hyuck and abo is interesting to me so here yall go, maybe?? idk yet, slight kunten agenda, this one in particular is renmin centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-10 14:21:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17427566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pastel/pseuds/jeffjung
Summary: In Omegan History, the teacher - a tall beta named Mr. Kim - walked into the classroom with even more drama than usual. “My class,” he put both hands on his stomach, as if bracing himself for the sheer weight of the news he was about to deliver, “I am about to give you the biggest assignment of this semester.”Mr. Kim, while slightly melodramatic in his actions, rarely minced words. Renjun liked this about him, and liked him even more for the ways he would stretch the curriculum to reach the truth of the matter, ignoring the sanitized history he was supposed to be teaching.





	1. an orange a day keeps the doctor away

**Author's Note:**

> hello!! ive wanted to write an abo au for a long time now just to play with the limits of the genre so... here we go! this is part one of? four or five stories that will follow the dreamies for a long time... from high school to.. changing the world? idk man. this one in particular is focused on the development of renmin's relationship, and happens earliest in the series.
> 
> a bit of info about my abo universe! there's gender (masculine, feminine), sex (basically the existence of mammary glands in this universe), and then designation (alpha, beta, omega). instead of being from wolves, my abo mythology comes from the development of hunter-gatherer societies... females were gatherers, took take of children, and lived more sedentary lifestyles, while males were hunters! so as an evolutionary precaution, designation developed, allowing alpha females and omega males to keep generations moving forward, even if half of the settlement (the hunters or the gathers) was compromised.  
> heats and ruts do exist, but they're more like periods than anything really sexual.  
> 50% of the population are betas, 25% are alphas, and 25% are omegas. within alphas, 75% are male and only 25% are female. the reverse is true for omegas.  
> and with presenting! while it's occasionally obvious at birth (especially for female alphas), each individual is different and designation-related structures may take until puberty/presentation to be fully developed.  
> if u have any other questions about the rules of my abo universe pls feel free to ask, or i'll try to expand more on it as the story goes on!

Renjun understood why high school was segregated by designation, but that didn’t mean he liked it. It would have been tolerable, really, if the education alphas and omegas received were actually equal, like they were _legally_ supposed to be, but he figured there were maybe three places in the world where that actually happened and his high school wasn’t one of them.

 

Alphas had mandatory courses like political theory, advanced physics, and conflict studies that omegas couldn’t enter, while the omega curriculum was mostly classes like culinary studies, consumer mathematics, and studio arts. It took considerable fighting with the school administration for omegas to take even the designation-neutral classes usually reserved for betas.

 

Putting a neon sign saying “ _We Don’t Want You To Be Too Ambitious_ ” above the omega wing of the school would have been better.

 

There was one omega-specific class Renjun did enjoy, though: Omegan History. It focused on famous omegas in history, and the path of the omega rights movement. It was nice to know that there were people out there in the world who were fighting for Renjun’s right to learn about things like multivariable calculus and organic chemistry, and get a high-paying job instead of just being a stay-at-home parent.

 

His omegan history course also had Na Jaemin, who he happened to have _feelings_ for  - but that was more of a bonus than anything else.

 

Jaemin was a beta, but had spent most of his high school career bouncing between the alpha and omega classes after being fully dissatisfied with the way designation was completely glossed over in his beta courses.

 

“You guys _exist_ ,” Jaemin had told Renjun, “and the beta classes might mention alphas maybe once, as like, big executives we won’t ever have the honor of meeting, but obviously in the real world it’s not like that at all. If betas are really supposed to be the bridge between alphas and omegas, I don’t see why my education shouldn’t be a mix too, I guess.”

 

So Renjun liked Jaemin and his beautiful face and beautiful brain, even if he could be annoyingly childish in class and was a part of the student council, one of many student leadership opportunities omegas were expressly forbidden from joining.

 

Really, the only problem with Renjun’s crush on Jaemin was that Jaemin didn’t know about it.

 

Technically, there was also the issue of Jaemin being a beta. Alphas and omegas were supposed to end up together, and betas with other betas - nothing else. Sometimes, you might see omega-omega porn, and some alpha supremacist communes supported alpha-alpha couples, but that only meant relationships with betas were even more taboo. And that wasn’t even taking into consideration _gender_.

 

How illicit the crush was only made Renjun like Jaemin more, though. He was a modern omega - his feelings weren’t bound by designations.

 

“Heejin,” Renjun groaned, laying his head down on the cool laminate of the cafeteria table, “he’s so _cute_.” Jaemin didn’t eat in the omega lunchroom, but it was obvious who he was talking about.

 

“Tell him, then,” She replied, unpacking her lunchbox methodically. He’d always been jealous of her mother’s cooking, and the aromatic smell of Mrs. Jeon’s spicy chicken only made him curl further into the table.

 

“But I don’t know if he likes omegas or not. Or boys!” Renjun complained, blindly grabbing his orange off his lunchtray and unpeeling it right into Heejin’s lap.

 

“What are you- Hey!” She shouted, brushing the peel off her lap and shoving him upright. “Dick,” she muttered, glaring at him playfully. “Doesn’t like, everybody like omegas though? I’m sure he’d be flattered.”

 

Now sitting up, Renjun decided to stop with the moping and actually eat his school-provided lunch. “I dunno… we were talking in history and he was like, ‘I can be surprisingly shallow about some stuff’, which made me think, like-?” He cut himself off with a dramatic wave of one hand and a bite of room-temperature noodles.

 

Heejin took his words into consideration. “Isn’t he close with that one unpresented alpha kid, though? The good-looking one on the basketball team?” Renjun nodded, knowing exactly who she was talking about. ‘Unpresented’ and ‘alpha’ should have contradicted each other, but it was the best way to describe their school’s token late-bloomer, Lee Jeno.

 

“So maybe he just likes to hang out with beautiful people, not anything designationist. And if that’s the case then, like, you’re fine,” Heejin’s argument was reasonable, as was her voice. Still, Renjun felt a little wiggle of doubt in the back of his mind.

 

“Maybe,” he conceded, not particularly in the mood to delve into his insecurities in the school cafeteria. If only he had presented as something else - but there was no reason to lament what couldn’t be changed.

 

“And aren’t you going to say thank you?” Heejin’s tone of voice was upbeat again, and she jabbed her fork in his direction.

 

“For what?” He raised an eyebrow, genuinely confused. She hadn’t shared her chicken, or anything.

 

She rolled her eyes dramatically. “For calling you pretty, you piece of shit.”

 

A smirk found its way onto his face, and he tapped one finger on his chin, feigning deep thought. “I didn’t know you were supposed to thank people for stating facts…”

 

Renjun didn’t think you were supposed to say thank you for stating facts, but the next day he would have, if he could. In Omegan History, the teacher - a tall beta named Mr. Kim - walked into the classroom with even more drama than usual. “My class,” he put both hands on his stomach, as if bracing himself for the sheer weight of the news he was about to deliver, “I am about to give you the biggest assignment of this semester.”

 

Mr. Kim, while slightly melodramatic in his actions, rarely minced words. Renjun liked this about him, and liked him even more for the ways he would stretch the curriculum to reach the truth of the matter, ignoring the sanitized history he was supposed to be teaching.

 

“In pairs, I’d like you to contact a real life omega rights activist and interview them. I’ll have a list of contacts if you need help, or you can try reaching out to someone on your own. The pairs are as follows:”

 

Mr. Kim listed almost half the class before he got to Renjun. “Na Jaemin and Huang Renjun.”

 

Immediately, he shot Heejin a look from across the room, in his wide eyes a mixture of joy, fear, and sheer surprise. She smiled back at him, and mouthed a little cheer. It seemed impossibly lucky, and also entirely terrifying.

 

There was the telltale screech of a chair being pulled towards him, though, and Renjun dropped his gaze. “Hey, Jaemin,” he said, busying himself with pulling out his notebook. “Hello,” Jaemin replied in that way of his - Renjun could almost hear the tilde leave his mouth.

 

“So, um,” Renjun finally gave in and looked at Jaemin’s face, “do you wanna, like, use one of Mr. Kim’s people or try and… contact someone on our own?” At this distance, he can see each individual eyelash, the tiny pimple on the end of Jaemin’s chin. They’ve been this close before, Renjun would even go so far as to call them friends - but this new project is going to push his limits. Even now, all he wants is to watch Jaemin’s face move.

 

Jaemin props his head up on one hand, looking at Renjun in a way that’s considering and unfocused all at once. “I think it would be cool to contact someone on our own.” That’s what Renjun was thinking. “I don’t know where we’d get someone,” Jaemin continues, eyes now sweeping over the rest of the classroom, “and I don’t even know if they’d reply to a couple high schoolers, but it would be cool.”

 

“I’ll,” when Jaemin’s head comes swinging back around to look at him, Renjun hides his stutter with a cough, “I’ll ask around. There’s a lot of omegas in this school, somebody’s gotta know somebody.”

 

Jaemin gave him a winning smile, “That’s the spirit,” and a grin to match wound up on Renjun’s own face. He hadn’t noticed, but over the conversation they’d begun leaning closer and closer to each other, and Renjun couldn’t help himself - instinctually, he took the tiniest sniff of Jaemin.

 

Nothing had never smelt so good.


	2. youtiao for dinner in the qian household

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the "famous omega rights activists" i mention in this chapter are just names i made up on the spot, but the tv show chenle is watching is real! it's called instant hotel and you can find it on netflix.
> 
> also this is? supposed to be? a renmin-centric fic but this chapter is more focused on worldbuilding and setup i hope that's alright!! also don't expect future updates to be this fast lol i just have a lot of inspiration right now...

“Okay, so,” Jaemin begins, looking down at his notebook, “We need to find our person, write the paper, and then there’s the presentation.” His eyes flick up to meet Renjun’s briefly, and his gaze is entirely serious. “We should probably have somebody within the next week or two even if the whole thing isn’t due to until the end of the semester - we can put the presentation together later but Mr. Kim said he wanted at least five pages of writing on their impact, not including the actual interview transcript so… I think that will probably take some time.”

 

Renjun nods, mouth widening out to a close-lipped smile as he rests his head in his hands. “Makes sense,” he replies, admittedly a little too distracted by watching Jaemin talk to really focus on what he’s saying. He hadn’t realized Jaemin was this focused on his academics, and the intensity only makes him more attractive. “Finding our person is definitely our biggest priority.”

 

Jaemin nods back, and there’s a moment of awkward silence, only exacerbated by the silence of the library around them. Renjun thinks he can even hear the _skritch-skritch_ of a pencil two tables over. “So, um,” Renjun starts, desperate to keep the conversation going, to make himself seem likable and easy to talk to, “I guess we should look at our options right now?”

 

He pulls out his own notebook at long last, quickly flipping past the pages of doodles he has instead of notes - it’s a little embarrassing, in comparison to Jaemin’s nearly ruler-straight bulletpoints - to a blank sheet. “Obviously, we’re not going to get anyone _that_ famous,” he says, titling the page ‘Omegan History Project Options, “So that rules out most of the people I know of, like, Lee Aejeong or Barnie Chen.”

 

Jaemin’s look is relatively blank, now. “Um, Lee Aejeong wrote that really popular novel from last year," Renjun offers, "the one set during World War Two… about how it affected omegas? I think the title was, like, _Again You Ask Me For Forgiveness_ , or something like that? I haven’t read it myself, but I heard it was really good from my cousin Kun.”

 

Finally the lightbulb turns on in Jaemin’s head. “I think I’ve heard of it… Oh! I think we were covering banned books earlier this semester in my modern lit class and someone brought it up, like because it was the most recently published book banned in over ten countries. I’d love to read it sometime,” then Jaemin smiles that winning smile, and as much as it stings to hear that Kun’s favorite book - honestly, the number of times he’s heard Kun wax poetic about the way that book changed his perspective on designation - Renjun feels like he’s flying.

 

“I think Mr. Kim has it as part of our reading for later this semester, so hopefully we _will_ get to read it,” He replies, hoping to draw that grin out just a little longer.

 

“And Barnie Chen?” Jaemin asks, now watching Renjun with an eagerness that sits beautifully on his features. “Barnie Chen was the first omega to start the Omega Rights Marches, overseas… I think he’s like seventy or something now though.”

 

This makes Jaemin’s face twist a little bit. “They both sound really cool… but yeah, I don’t think we’re going to be able to get someone as famous as them to agree to an interview by a couple highschoolers.” He sounds genuinely put-out about it, but looks up at Renjun with a new smile soon after.

 

“Let’s find someone local. Like some real grassroots action, whaddya think?” He nudges Renjun’s shoulder with his own as he asks the question, and it’s all Renjun can do to rapidly nod his agreement. He can feel his heart beating in all the way up to his ears.

 

“Great! I have to go to basketball practice now, so let’s try and find three people each by the next time we meet up?” Jaemin offers as he begins to put his things into his backpack. It hits Renjun then that they’ve been sitting here in the library working on the project for just over an hour - but it feels like it’s been just a few minutes.

 

He manages to smile his best smile up at Jaemin just before he leaves. “Yep, sounds good!”

 

Later that day, he can’t believe that’s what he ended the conversation on. Even though they’re working on this project together, he still doesn’t have Jaemin’s number - and hadn’t even thought to ask for it! He flops over on the couch as soon as he gets home, maybe a little dejected.

 

“What’s wrong with you?” Chenle asks as he walks into the living room, a plate of snacks in his hand, “and shove over, you’re in my spot.” Renjun notices the show paused on the TV, and acquiesces, scooting down as far as he can while still keeping most of his body on the couch.

 

Chenle sits with a little _harrumph_ , but doesn’t turn the show back on. “Seriously, what’s up?” Not for the first time, Renjun finds himself thinking that he’s lucky to have Chenle in his life as the little brother he never had. Or, well, he might tell most people that Chenle _is_ his brother, just as he says that Kun and Sicheng are his cousins - it’s a lot easier to explain than the whole friend of a family friend situation - but he knows it’s almost entirely circumstance that they’ve both ended up here, under the same roof.

 

“Just regretting saying something, the usual,” Renjun replies with a sigh, flipping himself over onto his stomach and looking to the TV. “What’re you watching?”

 

“It’s this show where they take like, Airbnb hosts and make them compete about who has the best house,” it's obvious Chenle has already processed Renjun’s moodiness and decided he’s going to continue in his good mood regardless, “I know it sounds kind of boring but they’re _so_ vicious with each other, I love it.”

 

He presses play, and the two of them manage to watch an episode and a half before Kun gets home for dinner.

 

“So, how were your days?” Kun asks as he pulls a plate of stir-fried vegetables out of the microwave. They’re just eating leftovers tonight - still, they’re very good leftovers - and Renjun can tell Kun feels a little guilty about it, so he’s turned the small talk meter all the way up. Renjun’s more than fine with their dinner, since he honestly prefers they eat freshly cooked food on days when Sicheng isn't closing at the coffee-shop and can eat with them, but he knows the stress Kun feels, sometimes, as their caretaker here.

 

Chenle immediately launches into a story about absolutely _wrecking_ some kid named "Jisung Pawrk" in a bottle-flipping contest at lunch, and segues into a very dramatic retelling of his after-school choir practice before pausing. He catches Renjun's gaze with absolute chaos in his eyes.

 

“Oh, yeah, Renjun came back late today,” He wiggles his eyebrows as he says it, and it’s only Kun’s quiet mumble of ‘No fights at the dinner table, please’ that spares Chenle from the threat of Renjun’s raised hand.

 

“I was just working on a project for history,” Renjun explains - then remembers his conversation with Jaemin about the Lee Aejeong book. “Did you know that that book you like - the Forgiveness one - is apparently banned in like ten countries?”

 

Kun nods sadly, bringing a bite of jielan down from his mouth. “I wish more alphas would read it - I know it definitely taught me a lot, but there’s even people here that wish we could ban it. Is that what your project’s on, the book?”

 

Renjun shakes his head. “No, we’re supposed to interview a modern day omega rights activist.” He expects Kun to be disappointed - he really loves that book - but instead the older man straightens up, suddenly interested.

 

“Who’re you doing it on?” He asks, and Renjun can tell Chenle is just as curious about Kun’s sudden burst of energy by the way he shovels food into his mouth just a little more slowly. For an alpha, Kun is extremely well-versed in omega rights activism, but he’s usually too tired after work to look this excited.

 

It makes Renjun hesitate as he speaks, “We… don’t have anybody yet.”

 

Kun’s reply comes immediately, “I know someone,” his gaze is on fire, and for the first time in a long while Kun looks as young as he’s supposed to be. “Or,” and suddenly he pauses, the weight of the day reappearing on his features. “I think I know someone - I guess you just can’t tell him it’s from me, but anyway - have you ever heard of Ten Leechaiyapornkul?”

 

Surprisingly, the name doesn’t ring a bell for Renjun - it’s Chenle’s chopsticks that clatter against the table. “You know Ten?!” He yells, mouth wide open. Renjun can see little bits of half-chewed rice and carrots on his tongue.

 

“Okay… so who’s Ten?” Renjun asks, reaching across the table to close Chenle’s mouth for him.

**Author's Note:**

> if u enjoyed, please leave a comment or a kudo, i would really appreciate it!  
> talk to me on my cc [here](https://curiouscat.me/uglyfics)! thanks so much for reading!


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